Despite a month of non-stop catastrophizing in the media, the Mecca Defense Pact—much like the Memor

Despite a month of non-stop catastrophizing in the media, the Mecca Defense Pact—much like the Memorandum of Understanding—has proven short-lived. When the Saudis, custodians of the holy cities, prayed for help in their hour of need, they faced Jerusalem.
First, some context.
The Mecca Pact, a defense agreement signed between three of the largest Muslim nations (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey), was meant to be a “shield of peace” that would “last for generations,” according to the Pakistani prime minister. It achieved neither, but to be fair, that rhetoric was always empty. The pact was a triangulation: a signal to Washington that Riyadh had options, and an attempt to build a non-aligned pole in the Middle East to counter both Iranian and Israeli ambitions. Yet the rubber met the road almost immediately, and promptly swerved out of control.
Last week, Houthi missiles and drones hit four Saudi cities, wounding 73 civilians and halting operations at energy facilities, all while a Houthi offensive in Yemen seized much of the Red Sea coast and closed in on the Bab al-Mandeb. But never fear: Turkey’s foreign minister strongly condemned the attacks and reaffirmed Ankara’s support for the kingdom, warning that the strikes undermined diplomatic efforts to end the Yemen conflict through a lasting political solution. He then called on the Houthis to cease their aggression. Translation: no help is coming.
Saudi Arabia’s Houthi problem got the European Hamas treatment, and when you have a Hamas-shaped problem, you call the experts. So far, Israel has publicly committed to sharing intelligence on the Houthis, though I suspect the real cooperation runs considerably deeper. The Saudis, as far as anyone knows, have promised nothing in return.
If that sounds unfair, it’s because it is. For decades the Arab world has treated Israel like a mistress: the rendezvous were frequent and kept firmly out of sight. One might argue that Israel should now demand Riyadh take the UAE path and make the relationship official before it deepens any further. That would be a mistake.
Israel wants a warm peace with Saudi Arabia, not a forced détente. Demanding public normalization now won’t produce a treaty; the situation isn’t desperate enough that the kingdom would risk ignoring the Palestinians. Instead, such a demand would only cost Israel friends in the long run. Long before any official ties with the Gulf were announced, Israel had built thousands of smaller connections through intelligence-sharing and cooperation. Israel and Saudi Arabia already have a long history together, but there is no such thing as too strong a foundation.
For now, it is sufficient for Riyadh to know that if it is looking for a protector, it will not find one in Ankara.
Fearing he would antagonize Iran and spoil a useful relationship, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has squandered his chance to consolidate a bloc. In keeping Tehran’s favor, he left an opening for the very adversary he signed the treaty to hedge against to step into the gap.
Washington may have let a similar opportunity slip: the chance to bear-hug a frightened ally. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, CENTCOM wisely reasserted the strength and cohesion of their bloc, convening a meeting in Germany with representatives from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt. But as in the Iran war, military competence was undercut by political mixed messaging.
Mohammed bin Salman asked Trump to strike the Houthis and was repeatedly rebuffed. Trump went further, claiming the terror group “called us, and they let us know that they don’t want to fight with us.” He is unlikely to stay so magnanimous once the Houthis grow less discriminating, but by then it will be too late.
The Saudi fear has never been that the US military couldn’t protect them, but that the US political class wouldn’t. They didn’t sign the Mecca Pact in the immediate aftermath of the war; they signed only after a month of Trump’s bi-polar messaging on negotiations.